Happy Saturday. In 1999, the Secret Society of Happy People declared each Aug. 8 National Happiness Day. At least that’s what Wikipedia says, so mustn’t it be true? To commemorate Happiness Day, let’s consider some not-so-happy observations of the not-entirely-honest and not-quite-right state of our disunion. Don’t lament. We end on an upbeat note.

Some Democrats, including a prominent party spokeswoman, have trouble explaining the difference between “Democrat” and “socialist.” This isn’t because Democrats don’t know the difference. It has more to do with there being little, if any, difference.

Democrats and socialists both favor government over the individual, the federal government over state governments and the ideological compulsion to redistribute wealth earned by some to the pockets of others who didn’t earn it. Both camps say this “levels the playing field.” It actually levels the score, but that’s another column.

Socialists, or at least those who admit being one, are more honest. They call it what it is. Democrats, at least those pandering to voters who are put off by being linked with Karl Marx, Josef Stalin and Bernie Sanders, aren’t as honest about it. That means the difference between socialists and this kind of Democrat is measured by degrees of honesty, not degrees of ideology.

Those old enough to have heard it at the time, and those inquisitive enough to read history, may recall the infamous words of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union’s Communist Party first secretary, addressing Western ambassadors in 1956: “Whether you like it or not, we are on the right side of history. We will bury you.”

Even Democrats don’t dispute that Nikita was a socialist. Isn’t it interesting how many Democrats today invoke Khrushchev’s phrase “right side of history” to justify their policies?

If that doesn’t put a frown on your face, consider the unhappy reality that, in a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 63 percent of Americans said they are uncomfortable with the country’s direction on social issues.

How does this unhappiness jibe with the undeniable socialist, er, excuse me, Democratic gains providing more people than ever with food stamps, government support checks, government-mandated health care, abortions, free condoms and subsidized housing, to name a few advances of that side of history?

The Washington Post, hardly a Republican mouthpiece, let alone a conservative bastion, put it this way: “Liberals have won a string of victories on gay marriage and health care reform this year, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds a large majority of Americans are unhappy with where the nation is headed on social issues.”

Could it be that the “right side of history” is inherently unhappy? More of other people’s stuff, more latitude to do your own thing, more government in every sense, and this is what we get? Unhappiness?

What went wrong?

Alexis de Tocqueville, essentially a French tourist to our land in 1831, in his book “Democracy in America,” noted the roots of happiness and unhappiness.

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it,” Tocqueville wrote. “Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

If Tocqueville was right, what’s happy about being restricted, losing personal value or being reduced to a mere agent of the state?

The effects of socialism, or “progressivism” as Democrats deceptively describe it, weren’t lost on Tocqueville: “What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life?”

Might this explain the nation’s otherwise counterintuitive unhappiness as socialistic overlords, whatever they call themselves, impose more benefits and the necessary controls to deliver them?

Unhappily, the prescient Tocqueville observed: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

How can such a thing happen in the land of the free and home of the brave? “There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle,” wrote Tocqueville, a man centuries ahead of his time.

The Frenchman who saw America’s greatness and predicted its demise understood what constitutes the fork in the road: “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

We promised to end on an up note. History tells us the godless, secular, absolutely socialist Soviet Union is happily buried.

But America was inspired to greatness by religious revivals, first by Calvinists, then by Baptists and Methodists. The ball’s in your court, folks. Have a happy tomorrow.

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